Change at San Diego City Hall

U-T San Diego Editorial Staff

No matter what happens in the general elections on Nov. 6, come 10 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 3 – Inauguration Day – San Diego City Hall will undergo a stunning transformation in politics and personality. It will be easily the most significant reshuffling since the resignation of Mayor Dick Murphy on July 15, 2005, in the midst of the pension-fund crisis, and arguably for much longer than that. This morphosis promises significant changes in public policy, and possibly a substantial increase in political conflict.

Starting at the top, either conservative Republican Carl DeMaio or liberal Democrat Bob Filner will become San Diego’s 35th mayor, succeeding Jerry Sanders. Either DeMaio or Filner would be expected to not just install their own choices into the top ranks of City Hall management – the mayoral inner circle, including the chief financial officer and the chief operating officer – but, in time, possibly key department heads, as well.

And perhaps more significantly, either DeMaio or Filner, both of whom have a publicly combative side to them, would bring a dramatic change in style to the mayor’s office compared with the usually low-key, mild-mannered Sanders. And both candidates clearly have their policy differences with the incumbent mayor.

Whichever one of them wins could also end up facing a hostile City Council.

Tuesday’s primary election guaranteed that there will be at least four Republicans – veteran council members Kevin Faulconer and Lorie Zapf, and newcomers Mark Kersey and Scott Sherman – and at least four Democrats – Council President Tony Young and veterans Todd Gloria, David Alvarez and Marti Emerald.

The politically decisive seat won’t be known until November when voters pick between Republican businessman Ray Ellis and Democratic incumbent Sherri Lightner in the council’s 1st District.

Council President Young has done an impressive job the past two years of bringing the council’s partisan factions together on key issues, but his diplomatic skills will be tested anew depending on who wins the mayor’s job and the Ellis-Lightner battle.

Implementing Proposition B, the comprehensive reform initiative that passed with nearly two-thirds voter approval on Tuesday, could also prove highly divisive, depending again on who sits in the mayor’s office and the partisan split on the City Council. DeMaio was a primary sponsor of Proposition B and its passage was a keystone of his primary election campaign for mayor. Filner opposed the initiative and would not likely attempt to implement it in the same aggressive and speedy fashion as City Attorney Jan Goldsmith has indicated he will attempt.

There are other ramifications that will impact politics and policy. A key one will be that, with the council expanded to nine members for the first time, it will take six council votes to override a veto by the mayor.

All of this is what’s at stake on Nov. 6. Fasten your seat belts, San Diego.